| Blighty
Right. Right, then.
thank you very much.
Right.
And now in Chester paddock,
horses whip themselves with tails.
Right.
And now the clouds are
sliced by brights and sharps;
the small rains down do ale.
And Thanks a lot
of tinned meat and gorse;
and then the cause of animal forms.
Right. And
then the royal arrowed deer
and in the weirs a blonde.
Thanks, then; lovely, that.
And then they spray divided Mary in the
fens.
Perfect.
All right then.
And piled minis and the proteins
gone all treacly in the sun.
The Hound and Peat,
The Rat and Saddle,
The Dart and Digby.
Fine. Right.
The glass is
brinkling in the grass
and Bill goes down to chalk in boats.
Right, then.
Lovely.
Thank you very much.
Previously published in Field,
2002
The Moai, Easter Island
The heart at the edge cannot break
though it aches.
No room inside and only weather out,
it turns from the interior to sea
and sits,
unaware if it is patient
or asleep.
Separated stone,
too far from source
and too close to tide water.
Even without weather it will change.
Depictions slide,
features find a plane and fall;
sight remains
fixed and unremitting
though uninstructed at the core.
It never has a choice.
It loves the things it sees,
it is unable
not to.
Previously published in Notre
Dame Review, 2002
As If Slipping
As if from the jaws of a sleeping crocodile
the minutes creep
with lights aloft along a window
in the space the blind lets in
to remind us of the night.
No forgetting in sanctuary,
in flocked silence when flying’s over.
A birdlike memory comes and goes
to clutch of tilted nests
woven of our mothers’ hair.
And by my bed a tendril of clematis
aspires from the floor.
A prayer of morning dies in me,
unsupported.
It takes a wandering toward obsidian
to gather prints enough
to make a step that you can see.
Then four to make a fear of it,
an address for the knees
remembering it a silent way.
Seen
cold in your displeasure
white bowl
end of white arms
lean to over morsels
bits
no spoon gets under
lifts
or of another other
open close the white hinge
|
